This week, 1636 Forum was in the courtroom as Harvard argued two cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit against the federal government — one Monday over billions in federal research funding, then one Tuesday over international students’ ability to enter the U.S. to study at Harvard. For a refresher on the district court’s ruling in the funding case, read our breakdown here.
Both cases are appeals of rulings U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs issued in Harvard’s favor (in June 2025 on international students and September 2025 on federal funding). Monday also included a parallel appeal involving the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
In both cases, Harvard alleged the government’s actions boiled down to unlawful retaliation following the University’s rejection of its sweeping demands. But the appeals raise narrower questions about which court(s) should hear Harvard’s claims, what protections Harvard can receive going forward — and whether the expiration of the international-student restrictions leaves anything for the court to rule on.
Here are our five Key Takeaways from the hearings:
Monday’s dispute about jurisdiction was really a dispute about what kind of injury Harvard suffered.
On appeal, the government is challenging only the letters terminating individual grants, not the broader orders freezing Harvard’s funding. Government attorney Michael Velchik (AB ‘12, JD ‘16) characterized Harvard’s challenge to the grant termination letters as, in substance, a claim for money owed under federal grants — the kind of dispute it says belongs in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims rather than district court where Harvard sued.
That matters because the Court of Federal Claims primarily awards monetary damages, while Harvard is seeking protections against what it says is unconstitutional retaliation. Harvard attorney and former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement (JD ‘92) argued that the government confuses the means of the alleged retaliation — money — with the injury itself. His hypothetical: if the government pulled Catholic University’s funding because it held too many Masses, the underlying injury would still be a First Amendment violation.
With its withheld funding already largely restored, Harvard wants protection against future funding cuts.
Burroughs’s order had turned the government’s funding “spigot” back on, as Clement put it. Harvard argued that what it needs most now is protection against future funding cuts for the same allegedly unlawful reasons. The government noted that federal agencies have since paid Harvard more than $435 million — but only because they were “under court order.”
Harvard acknowledged that the government could still cut funding for legitimate reasons — for example, if Dartmouth cured cancer and the government stopped funding cancer research altogether. Judge Sandra Lynch pressed that logic: if the injunction isn’t a blanket bar on future cuts, how should it distinguish between cuts it prohibits and those the government remains free to make?
Both sides want a decision on the expired international-student proclamation. The judges may not give them one.
President Trump’s June 4, 2025 proclamation restricting international students from entering the U.S. to attend Harvard expired in December, prompting the judges to ask whether its expiration made the case moot.
Neither side thinks it did. The government’s attorney Tiberius Davis said President Trump is “very likely to reissue a similar proclamation if we prevail here,” while Clement warned that dismissal could leave Harvard back at “square zero” if another proclamation followed. If the court finds the case moot, its ruling would end there without contemplating the government’s argument that the proclamation fell within the President’s immigration powers.
The judges’ harder questions fell more consistently on the government Monday; Tuesday, both sides faced sustained skepticism.
Questions don’t necessarily predict a ruling, but on Monday, all three judges intensely tested the government’s position, with Judge Lynch repeatedly pressing Velchik on what First Amendment rights Harvard retained under its theory.
Tuesday was different. On mootness, the judges challenged the position the two sides shared, at times to the point that the opposing lawyers reinforced each other’s arguments. Clement called mootness “perhaps the one thing in the whole case we agree with the government on.” Once the judges turned to the underlying legal dispute, however, their questions again focused heavily on the government’s position.
On both days, the panel questioned whether the government’s actions logically followed from its concerns about antisemitism.
On Monday, Judge Gustavo Gelpí questioned why the government terminated funding across Harvard rather than following Title VI’s required process, which limits funding cuts to programs where discrimination is found. Judge Lynch then pointed to remedial steps Harvard had already taken under two earlier private Title VI settlements (Students Against Antisemitism and Shabbos Kestenbaum) earlier that year, asking how the government could characterize Harvard as indifferent to antisemitism without investigating those steps or making findings of its own.
On Tuesday, Judge Gelpí asked why, if antisemitism was one rationale for President Trump’s proclamation barring international students from entering the U.S. to attend Harvard, it also barred Israeli and Jewish international students. Harvard said this weakened the government’s case that it had a “rational basis” for the proclamation; the government said antisemitism was only one of several rationales.
The First Circuit will now decide both appeals, though the international-student visa case could end without a ruling on the President’s authority. If the court ultimately finds the case moot, it must also decide whether to vacate Judge Burroughs’s ruling (stripping its legal effect) or leave it in place.
There’s no set deadline. As a benchmark, the First Circuit took a median of 4.4 months to rule after oral argument in the year ending September 2025. Either side could then ask the First Circuit to reconsider its decision or ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.
For now, Harvard’s federal research funding has been restored, while the international-student proclamation has expired.
We’ll keep you updated in our weekly newsletter on any new developments in the cases. Please keep sending us your questions and we’ll keep trying to answer them!
Ask 1636
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Q: In your Big Idea on The Crimson’s faculty survey, were the results representative of faculty across the university?
No. The Crimson’s faculty survey, which we analyzed in a recent Big Idea (read it here), was sent only to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) — about 1,400 of Harvard’s more than 2,300 total tenured and non-tenured faculty. And within FAS, 463 faculty responded (and 292 completed the full survey). So the survey’s results, which included stats like 56% of responding faculty were satisfied with President Alan Garber (down from an extraordinarily high 74% last year) and 31% said the FAS faculty has a “troubling lack of ideological diversity,” reflect the views of surveyed FAS faculty, not Harvard faculty University-wide.
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Events
Cambridge, MA — October 11: Harvard President Alan Garber (AB ‘76, PhD ‘82) will be interviewed by Miriam Goldberger (AB ‘28) as part of the inaugural symposium of YARID, a new journal featuring collegiate perspectives on the future of Jewish thought and culture. Register here.
Los Angeles, CA — October 21 from 6:00-8:30 p.m. PT: Meet HKS Dean Jeremy Weinstein at this HKS on the Road series event. Register here.
FYIs
Harvard Commits $150 Million to Research, Convenes Committee on University-wide Science Priorities
Harvard announced a $150 million investment in scientific research and infrastructure, as the University responds to uncertainty in federal funding. President Alan Garber (AB ‘76, PhD ‘82) said the initiative will support “high-impact innovation” while Harvard seeks “to diversify funding sources.”
The University will distribute $100 million directly to its schools, proportional to each school’s federal research expenditures. The remaining $50 million will support University-wide initiatives in areas including neuroscience, immunology, energy and climate, industry-oriented research, and computing infrastructure. Unlike the $250 million Harvard committed in 2025 to sustain research disrupted by the federal funding freeze, the new investment is intended to advance research and attract future federal, industry, and philanthropic support.
Harvard’s frozen federal research funding was restored in fall 2025 following a federal district court ruling, which the government has appealed to the First Circuit. The pace of new federal research awards to Harvard and other universities has nevertheless “declined substantially,” according to the University. Johns Hopkins, for example, reported receiving 43% less federal research funding and 28% fewer awards in 2025 than in 2024.
Amid that uncertainty, Garber has also convened a University-wide faculty committee to identify priorities for scientific research over the next several years. Harvard said the committee will consult faculty to identify areas where the University could have a “transformative impact” on scientific research. According to The Crimson, its work is also designed to provide a framework for fundraising initiatives tied to scientific research and is connected to Harvard’s efforts to attract more private funding for science.
Former Antisemitism Advisor to President Claudine Gay Describes “Extremely Disturbing” Meeting During Gay’s Antisemitism Advisory Group
Author Dara Horn (AB ‘99, PhD ‘06), who served on Claudine Gay’s Harvard Antisemitism Advisory Group after October 7, revealed new details about the group in a Statecraft with Avi Jorisch podcast episode.
She recalled an “extremely disturbing” meeting in which deans from across Harvard described campus disruptions while, in her view, “presenting it as though it were no big deal.”
Among the disruptions she recalled deans describing: the Harvard Law School dean shared that protesters marched through classroom buildings and followed Jewish students with megaphones; the Harvard Medical School dean shared that administrators allowed a “die-in” protest to continue despite its interference with its operations, instead canceling a patient clinic so Jewish patients and staff wouldn’t have to walk through what administrators described as an “upsetting” situation. At the time, the dean of HLS was now-Provost John Manning (AB ’82, JD ‘85); and the dean of HMS was, and remains, George Daley (AB ’82, MD ’86).
Horn notes that deans were tolerating conduct “literally interfering with the core functions of the university,” including to hold classes for students and provide patient care.
EEOC Sues Harvard for Records in Hiring Discrimination Investigation
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued Harvard on September 29 to enforce a subpoena seeking records for its investigation into alleged systemic race and sex discrimination in University employment practices.
The EEOC hasn’t yet determined that Harvard violated federal law, but points to Harvard’s faculty demographic data (once on its website, since taken down) and stated goal of “demographic diversification of the faculty” as grounds for investigating whether its practices violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The underlying April 2025 charge alleges Harvard discriminated against white, Asian, male, and straight employees, applicants, and training-program participants in hiring, promotion, compensation, and career-development programs. The subpoena seeks records dating to January 2018, including faculty applicants’ resumes, interview notes, demographic information, and hiring outcomes; faculty hiring guidance and records from Harvard’s diversity-related offices and initiatives; and discrimination complaints from white, Asian, male, or straight faculty members and applicants.
The EEOC says Harvard’s production has been “partial,” “piecemeal,” and “grossly deficient.” In June 2026, Harvard asked the EEOC to rescind or narrow the subpoena, arguing that the investigation is retaliation for its broader legal dispute with the federal government; the EEOC denied that request in August. In 2024, then-chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce Virginia Foxx called Harvard’s production for its antisemitism investigation “woefully inadequate.”
The case parallels a separate Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuit filed in February to compel Harvard to produce records for an investigation into alleged racial discrimination in admissions at Harvard College, Harvard Law School, and Harvard Medical School. The Department of Education (ED) later joined the case. Neither DOJ nor ED has concluded that Harvard violated the law.
FAS Launches 25 Faculty Searches; PhD Admissions Returns to 80% of Historical Levels
Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) has recently announced several steps to restore academic hiring and graduate admissions following last year’s cuts:
Tenure-track hiring: FAS is launching 25 tenure-track faculty searches across its three divisions and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), further loosening the University-wide hiring freeze from last spring. FAS Dean Hopi Hoekstra said last year’s cost-cutting measures had “strengthened our financial position” and created a foundation to “begin to undertake new work.” Searches include positions in English, economics, government, art history, and modern Korean history. In the Science Division, at least five searches will focus on AI, aiming for researchers “really pushing the limits” of AI in fields including life sciences, statistics, quantum science, and landscape ecology and conservation.
PhD admissions: FAS will also increase PhD admissions across its three divisions to 80% of “historical admissions levels” this admissions cycle, partially reversing cuts made after the federal government froze more than $2.2 billion in Harvard funding last year. FAS initially cut planned admissions by more than 50%, including by roughly 75% in the Science Division, before restoring them to about 50% as federal funding resumed. Read our Special Edition on how much Harvard saved with its cuts here.
Admissions in individual programs may fall above or below the 80% level; the Science Division will return to a “block grant” system, under which departments receive funding they can allocate across graduate programs and multiple years. The Social Science and Arts and Humanities divisions will continue receiving specific admissions-slot allocations.
Hoekstra also announced a faculty committee chaired by psychology professor Fiery Cushman (AB ‘03, PhD ‘08) to assess PhD cohort sizes over the longer term. A Graduate School of Arts & Sciences (GSAS) committee warned in 2023 that PhD education was already drawing on FAS endowment support at an “unsustainable” rate.
Fundraising: The changes follow a strong fundraising year for FAS, which raised roughly $800 million in fiscal year 2026, compared with its $500 million goal. FAS also announced in September that it had completed a $100 million fundraising challenge for 50 endowed PhD fellowships and launched a second $100 million challenge.
More News
More News at Harvard
The Crimson: “Pritzker Says She Is Open to Meeting with White House Officials as Harvard’s Governing Boards Convene”
FAS: “Senior Adviser on AI Transition” — feat. FAS professors Christopher Stubbs and Douglas Finkbeiner
The Crimson: “Deming Says Harvard Must ‘Move Faster’ on AI, but Forthcoming Guidance Will Stop Short of Mandate”
Wall Street Journal: “Claudine Gay Is Back at Harvard—to Teach a Class About Harvard” — feat. former president Claudine Gay (PhD ‘98)
The Crimson: “Harvard Professors Clash Over Whether University Has Done Enough to Promote ‘Open Inquiry’ in Panel Event”
The Crimson: “‘As Normal As It Could Be’: Harvard Writing Center Maintains Core Services After FAS Restructuring”
The Crimson: “Harvard Departments Split on AI Use in Senior Theses, With Many Yet to Set Rules”
The Crimson: “Harvard School of Education To Sunset School Counseling Licensure Pathway”
Center for Mathematical Sciences and Applications (CMSA): “Recommendations of the Summit on PhD Math Education in the Age of AI” — from the Summit on PhD Math Education in the Age of AI, co-hosted by the Harvard Math Department and CMSA
Harvard Gazette: “Is Cursive Worth Learning?” — feat. HGSE professor Catherine Snow
Reasonably Optimistic (Washington Post): “Roland Fryer on Nikole Hannah-Jones and Race in Education” — podcast feat. Harvard economics professor Roland Fryer
Boston Globe: “Harvard Medical School Blast Defendants Avoid Jail Time, Get Probation”
Feed Me: “Guest Lecture: a Harvard junior.” — interview with Alex Bronzini-Vender (AB ‘28)
The Crimson: “Academic Mergers Should Serve Academics” — editorial by The Crimson Editorial Board
The Crimson: “Your Concentration Will Change How You Think” — op-ed by Matthew Tobin (AB ‘27)
The Crimson: “PAFs Can’t Be the New PCAs” — op-ed by Taylor Beljon-Regen (AB ‘29)
The Crimson: “Academics, Don’t Abandon America” — op-ed by Alex Bronzini-Vender (AB ‘28) and Benjamin Isaac (AB ‘27)
The Crimson: “Against Skimming” — op-ed by Michael Isayan (AB ‘29)
Harvard Magazine: “I Used to Think AI Could Make Me a Better Writer” — op-ed by former Harvard College writing tutor Serena Jampel (AB ‘25)
The Crimson: “HKS Used Free Speech as a Cop-Out” — op-ed by Charleen Adams, geneticist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
More News Beyond Harvard
New York Times: “Hedge Fund Executive Gives $3 Billion to Carnegie Mellon in Largest-Ever Gift” — feat. Ken Griffin (AB ‘89)
Nature: “Exclusive: Sham Scientific Societies Are Misleading Star Researchers”
Chronicle of Higher Education: “The Harvard Anthropologist Who’s Skewering His Own Field” — feat. Harvard anthropology professor Joseph Henrich’s new report on anthropology as part of the Committee on the State of Scholarship in the Humanities and the Humanistic Social Sciences
Yale Daily News: “Yale Already Made Majority of Cuts to Offset Trump’s Tax, Budget Shows”
Columbia Daily Spectator: “Mamdani Threatens to Sue Columbia to Open Campus Gates”
Cornell Daily Sun: “Black, Hispanic, Indigenous Enrollment at Cornell Falls to Lowest Level Post-Affirmative Action Ban”
U.S. Department of Justice: “Justice Department Finds UCLA Law School Discriminates Based on Race in Admissions”
STAT: “NIH Awarded All Its Grant Funding, but Delayed and Opaque Decisions Stymied Researchers”
Bloomberg: “Brown University’s CIO to Leave $8 Billion Fund at Year-End”
Brown Daily Herald: “University Launches New Philosophy, Politics and Economics Concentration”
Stanford Daily: “‘Academic, Not Partisan’: Stanford and Faculty Address Partnership With Trump Administration on New Manufacturing School”
Washington Post: “Stanford Removes AI-Altered Photo That Replaced Hispanic Student With Black Woman”
New York Times: “U. of Michigan Halts New Grading Plan After Backlash From Critics”
Times of Israel: “In Legal Settlement, UC Berkeley Promises Snubbed Israeli Dance Scholar a Job Offer”
Jewish Insider: “University of Texas Jewish Groups Host Former Israeli Hostage to Counter Piker Program”
New York Times: “College Students Flex Their Power in A.I. Investment Frenzy”
BBC: “China Funding UK Research and Sending It to Beijing’s Spies, MI5 Warns”
Chronicle of Higher Education: “Has Administrative Bloat Reached a Breaking Point?”
Chronicle of Higher Education: “Most Academics Haven’t Used AI to Write, but Think Limited Use Is Okay, Chronicle Survey Finds”
Advisory Group on Mathematics and AI: “Responsible Release of AI-Generated Mathematics” — feat. Harvard math professor Melanie Matchett Wood
Statecraft: “How to Build a Policy School”— interview with Johns Hopkins School of Government and Policy inaugural dean and former Harvard FAS government professor Will Howell
The New Atlantis: “Pessimism About Our Institutions Has Fueled Optimism About Disruption”
Nexus Center for Antisemitism Research: “Counting Antisemitic Incidents: What the ADL Audit Reveals — and Obscures”
Chronicle of Higher Education: “The Social Sciences Have a Politics Problem”
Wall Street Journal: “The Ph.D. Job Crisis Is a Needed Market Correction” — op-ed by Allysia Finley
New York Times: “I’m a College Professor. Writing Isn’t as Important as We Think.” — op-ed by Williams College philosophy department chair Joe Cruz
Chronicle of Higher Education: “How to Assign Research Papers Again” — op-ed by Dartmouth professor Brendan Nyhan
Chronicle of Higher Education: “Could AI Be Better at Peer Review Than Humans?” — op-ed by Behavioral and Brain Sciences editor Paul Bloom
Phillip Isola: “On the Value of Doing a PhD in the Age of AI” — essay by MIT professor Phillip Isola
Wall Street Journal: “Teach Students to Think With, Without and About AI” — op-ed by University of Chicago President Paul Alivisatos
City Journal: “How Washington Funded the Politicization of Science” — op-ed by Manhattan Institute director of higher education policy and senior fellow John Sailer